


Swim Meets

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crutchie is a swimmer, LOVE HIM, love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-19 23:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14248275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: You may not have known how to tell Crutchie that you liked him, but you did enjoy watching him at swim meets.





	Swim Meets

You walked across the school parking lot, enjoying the New York winter air felt on your very warm face. Oh, most parts of winter did not do it for you. You didn’t like the way the snow went dark and mushy on the sidewalks. You didn’t like the cold, the slick ice on the sidewalks, or the way everything in sight seemed grey and dead. No, you did not like winter. You did, on the other hand, adore Thursdays during the winter. Winter was swim season, and swim meets were on Thursdays. 

It was not a home meet that day, so you’d taken the subway to a school on the other side of the city. Over the course of the journey, you had begun to feel increasingly unwell. The chilly air felt like heaven on your burning cheeks, and the thin air made the cloudy ache in your head recede a bit. When you walked through the school doors, the heat was a punch in the face.

You were waiting in a short line to buy a ticket in, but turned when you heard somebody shout your name.

“Hey, Katherine,” you said. You were aiming for cheerful, but it fell flat. 

She grinned at you, but it faded when she saw your face. “Y/N, are you feeling okay? You look like crap.”

“Thanks,” you said dryly. You felt like crap, but that was aside from the point.

“Really,” she said with concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

“No,” you admitted. 

She kissed your forehead, swearing all the while that it was the best way to take somebody’s temperature without a thermometer, and frowned when she pulled away. “I think you have a fever. You have to go home.”

“I can’t go home! I have to watch the meet.”

“Crutchie wouldn’t want you to be here if you aren’t feeling well,” she said with a slight smile.

“I come to every meet,” you said. “I can’t miss one now, even if I don’t feel so good.” You had never missed one of Crutchie’s meets, even if nobody else went. You were the most constant fan of his, partially because he was your dear friend, and partially because you were totally crazy about him. You never told anybody, but everybody seemed to pick up on it anyway.

“Go home,” she said. She grabbed your hand and pulled you toward the door. “I’ll tell him that you came, and that you were really sorry to miss him. He’ll understand.”

You sighed. You could hardly walk straight, and you were having trouble focusing on anything. Maybe it would be better to go home, after all. Crutchie probably wouldn’t mind; it wasn’t as though nobody else had shown up. Katherine would be there to carry the torch.

 

You dozed on and off all afternoon, wearily watching episodes of FRIENDS in between naps. All the while, even knowing that you were as sick as a dog, you wished that you had been able to stay at the meet. 

You had liked Crutchie for years. You liked him through the awkward middle school years, when he had a bad haircut and wore crocs, complete with jibbitz. You liked him when you started high school, while he was still scrawny and his voice cracked. You still liked him now, after he had filled out, had killer fashion sense, and had a smile to die for. You just liked him, and if all you had to offer him was a swim meet every week, so be it.

When your phone went off, you expected it to be Katherine checking in, maybe even with the results from the meet.

Crutchie: are you feeling better?

You gaped at it, a smile blooming. 

Y/N: Not really, but I think I’ll be fine in a day or 2. By the next meet, for sure.

Crutchie: that’s good. it felt weird without you there

You had to turn off the phone for a minute, just to grin up at the ceiling. Not only did he care that you were sick; he missed having you at the swim meet. Of course, as his friend, you knew that he was too kind not to care. Even so, there was that 13 year old inside of you that erupted into butterflies and smiles and the strange desire to either squeal or giggle.

Oh, you really liked this boy.

 

As promised, you were feeling wonderful by the time the next meet came ‘round. That regular Thursday thrill was as strong as ever, magnified by the fact that Crutchie would be happy that you had come. 

It was a home meet, so you knew that most of the crew would show up to cheer on your friend, but there were even more than usual. You looked at the rows of bleachers, eyebrows skyrocketing as you took in all of the boys that had come. “Did anybody not show up?”

Jack snorted. “As if. We’re here as moral support. Speaking of which, hey, Race, give Y/N the sign we made her.”

Everybody within listening range grinned at you while Race rummaged under his seat. “For Crutchie’s immoral support,” he said smugly.

The sign, large and direct, read “YOU LOOK REAL GOOD IN THE SPEEDO, CRUTCHIE.” He turned it around, sticking out his tongue as he smiled, to reveal that the back of the sign bore “YOU WOULD LOOK EVEN BETTER OUT OF THAT SPEEDO, CRUTCHIE” in enthusiastic red paint.

Your jaw dropped and cheeks flamed. “I am not holding that up. Why would you even make that?”

“You come to every single swim meet, Y/N. Even the ones that are 45 minutes away,” Jack said. He was smiling, but it wasn’t exactly cruel. It was teasing, for sure, but there was nothing unkind about it. “We all see how you look at him, even if he doesn’t.”

“That’s not why I come,” you lied.

Katherine let out a loud laugh. “For $5, you get to watch him swim. He’s in one of those tiny school speedos, so you’ll see his arms and his chest. You get to see his abs.” There was a pause, and her smile grew even more. “He has a bulge. You can definitely see it when he wears a speedo.”

“Katherine!” You admonished her, but you couldn’t hold back the laugh that bubbled up. She was right, after all. Crutchie was an absolute snack. His appearance didn’t hold a flame to his personality, of course, but you weren’t going to pass up on a chance to watch him swim.

“You tried to come while you were sick,” she pointed out. “If you didn’t want to see him, you wouldn’t have come at all.”

Point one for Katherine.

“And,” Jack continued, “Crutchie wouldn’t have been so bothered by it if he didn’t want you to see him out of his speedo. And, like, on dates and stuff, but the speedo too.”

“He wasn’t that bothered by it,” you said. He had texted you, and he put a bar of chocolate in your locker for when you got back, but those were just considerate friend things to do.

“He thought that we should get pizza to-go so we could eat it at your place. He didn’t want you to miss out,” Jack said.

Mush leaned over to join the conversation. “He spent, like, two hours trying to figure out what to say to you. The best he could come up with was, ‘are you feeling better.’ He said that telling you that he was in love with you was too extreme of a reaction to having a fever, as though we haven’t been telling him to let you know for two years now.”

The others were chiming in, adding that he had bought three different kinds of candy to put in your locker before asking people which one he should give you, even though he knew that all three were your favorites. That he talks about you nonstop. That one of the reasons he worked so hard to stay in shape for swim season was that if you were going to be there, he wanted to be as good as possible. In short, he wanted to impress you.

You gaped at them, head feeling a little foggy again. Crutchie liked you. He liked you, and he wanted to impress you as much as you wanted to impress him. When the announcer named the swim that Crutchie always competed in, you snatched the sign out of Race’s hand and thrust it into the air, clutching it tightly in both hands.

As always, Crutchie looked over to your section of the bleachers to wave before he got to the edge of the pool. Though he wore goggles, you could see the exact moment he read the sign. He laughed, hand going up to run through his hair, though he had on a swim cap.

Jack gave your arm a soft punch. “Phase two,” he murmured.

As usual, Crutchie won. He had always been a great swimmer. Some people underestimated him because of his leg, but those were usually the people that Crutchie and his friends would laugh at when they tried to swim a little slower to give him a chance.

When Crutchie pulled himself out of the pool, he looked over at the bleachers again. You had turned around, and you could see his lips moving as he mouthed the words on the sign.

You would look even better without that speedo, Crutchie.

He was grinning when he walked over the the bench. He pulled out his phone, and your stomach sank. He was ignoring it. Maybe he did like you, but he was not taking the hint.

Your phone buzzed.

Crutchie: at least take me out to dinner first

Jack read the words over your shoulder and smiled. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Y/N: Sounds good to me. You free Saturday?

He looked up at you, hair wild now that it had been freed from the tight cap. He shot you a thumbs up. You returned it, smiling so hard your cheeks ached. His thumbs up turned into a fist bump, full on Breakfast Club.

Oh, you liked this boy.


End file.
